NSS – creating a tradeshow booth design (part 3)

Designing and building a tradeshow booth for the first time can be a little overwhelming, but if you break down all of the necessary tasks into a TO DO list, like anything, it becomes much more manageable. Here’s a look at our booth design “journey,” including our initial rough design and then our finished booth at the National Stationery Show. The numbers below indicate different products that we used, along with a link to the company or source – if you have any questions or would like more information, please let us know!  (News Flash: we are taking this same display down to the Atlanta Gift Show, Bldg. 3, Floor 4, Booth #2408!!!)

We started with a rough illustration of our Persona Pail display (above) -  our goal was to stay consistent with the Persona brand and create a contemporary and colorful booth, while at the same time showcase the decorated pails. Here’s a look at how it all turned out!

Of course, the NSS  journey begins with our crate being shipped to New York (photo above). Before finding this awesome product, we were going to build a crate from scratch (actually, my husband was designated for the job). Then, at the last minute, we found (1) Quick-Crate and true to their claim, it only takes about 5 minutes to ”build” the crate. The metal clamps hold all the wood panels together and best of all, we can use it over and over again – what a great find!

We paid close attention to details with our press kits and colorful table centerpiece. The press kits were packaged in a colorful zip vinyl case from Office Depot, finished off with a polka dot ribbon, a booth # hang tag and a round Persona “P” sticker. Thanks to our friends at Anders Ruff Custom Designs for telling us about (2) Online Labels! For the centerpiece, we purchased a bright orange metal vase and filled it with poms from (3) Pom Flair to match the colors of our logo.

To draw attention to our product and brand, we searched the internet and found a company called (4) Wall Hogs to create our logo signage. With a quick artwork upload to their web site, they recreated our logo in the form of a vinyl wall decal. Our next great find came from (5)Costco! They now offer beautiful prints in various sizes, mounted on museum quality poster board. We printed twelve 16″ x 20″ posters to showcase all of the Personas in each of the hair color choices (only $14.99 each). Just upload the artwork and pick it up at the store the same day. (You could also create a photo collage poster in honor of a birthday, anniversay or graduation.)

Thanks to a friend and former Norwegian ship builder (yes, ship builder!) (6) Per Tverdal, we custom-made nine shadow boxes out of a light weight birch wood and finished it off with trim molding. All of the boxes were painted white and secured to the foam core wall with Hercules Clips. We then attached a “stick-up” light in each shadow box to brighten the Persona Pail designs.

For our center table/shelving, we actually “recycled” two pieces from home, {available at (8)Target and Lowe’s}, placed them back to back and then for our table top, we purchased a 24″ x 24″ piece of orange plexiglass from (7)E -Street Plastics. This worked perfectly to showcase our holiday pails and to display marketing material.

Instead of renting ordinary carpet at the show, we opted to purchase a fun retro orange shag carpet. With a little more research on-line, we found the perfect size for our 5′ x 10′ booth on (9)Amazon.com. After setting everything up, we decided that the small side table needed a punch of color, so what better place to find unique fabric than the garment district of New York – a quick cab ride and 30 minutes later, we found the perfect table drape – orange netting with dots from (10) New York Elegant Fabrics. As you can see from the photo above, one can easily get sucked into creative overdrive at this fanastic fabric store! Last but not least, the lights, chairs, side curtain panels and computer table were all purchased from IKEA!